Imagination Movers: the Construction of Conservative Counter-Narratives in Reaction to Consensus Liberalism
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Imagination Movers: The Construction of Conservative Counter-Narratives in Reaction to Consensus Liberalism Seth James Bartee Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought Francois Debrix, Chair Matthew Gabriele Matthew Dallek James Garrison Timothy Luke February 19, 2014 Blacksburg, Virginia Keywords: conservatism, imagination, historicism, intellectual history counter-narrative, populism, traditionalism, paleo-conservatism Imagination Movers: The Construction of Conservative Counter-Narratives in Reaction to Consensus Liberalism Seth James Bartee ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to explore what exactly bound post-Second World War American conservatives together. Since modern conservatism’s recent birth in the United States in the last half century or more, many historians have claimed that both anti-communism and capitalism kept conservatives working in cooperation. My contention was that the intellectual founder of postwar conservatism, Russell Kirk, made imagination, and not anti-communism or capitalism, the thrust behind that movement in his seminal work The Conservative Mind. In The Conservative Mind, published in 1953, Russell Kirk created a conservative genealogy that began with English parliamentarian Edmund Burke. Using Burke and his dislike for the modern revolutionary spirit, Kirk uncovered a supposedly conservative seed that began in late eighteenth-century England, and traced it through various interlocutors into the United States that culminated in the writings of American expatriate poet T.S. Eliot. What Kirk really did was to create a counter-narrative to the American liberal tradition that usually began with the French Revolution and revolutionary figures such as English-American revolutionary Thomas Paine. One of my goals was to demystify the fusionist thesis, which states that conservatism is a monolithic entity of shared qualities. I demonstrated that major differences existed from conservatism’s postwar origins in 1953. I do this by using the concept of textual communities. A textual community is a group of people led by a privileged interpreter—someone such as Russell Kirk—who translates a text, for example Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, for followers. What happens in a textual community is that the privileged interpreter explains to followers how to read a text and then forms boundaries around a particular rendering of a book. I argue that conservatism was full of these textual communities and privileged interpreters. Therefore, in consecutive chapters, I look at the careers of Russell Kirk, John Lukacs, Christopher Lasch, and Paul Gottfried to demonstrate how this concept fleshed out from 1953 and well into the first decade of the new millennium. Dedication For Mom, Ashley, Caroline, Ella Grace, and George iii Acknowledgements: A project of this size does not happen in isolation. Many individuals have invested their time and effort into the writing of this dissertation. I want to thank my family for enduring years of my graduate study. I am also grateful to friends such as Matthew Farkas, Alfonso Veragay, Charles and Judith Jones, and Nina Salmon who supported me long before this project even took shape. My friends and extended family at Fellowship Chapel in Bristol, Virginia have continued to show support for my family and I from a distance, too. The completion of this dissertation would have also been unmanageable without the guidance of my five-member committee. A special thanks goes to both my dissertation director, Francois Debrix, and second reader, Matthew Gabriele. Dr. Gabriele helped me to assemble my thoughts and thinking about this project before it reached the proposal stage. Dr. Gabriele’s influence on my writing and research is indelible. Not only did Dr. Debrix have the exhaustive job of overseeing the entire ASPECT Department, but he spent hours revising my chapters and providing valued feedback on my work. Dr. Debrix communicated with me over weekends and holidays, helping me to fine-tune a large task despite his many duties. His careful oversight brought my research to fruition. The contributions and influence of Timothy Luke, Matthew Dallek, and Jim Garrison all remain well within these chapters, too. I could write a separate chapter on the knowledge and wisdom I have gained from my committee of scholars that have both challenged, and encouraged me, throughout this process. iv Any ASPECT student knows of the contributions and hard work that the ASPECT office manager Tamara Sutphin puts in during a typical semester. Tamara has helped me meet many deadlines and kept me up to date on various requirements throughout my career at Virginia Tech. Even when ASPECT was in search of a new program director, many of us took comfort in knowing that Tamara kept her eye diligently over our program. Finally, I want to acknowledge the many people who allowed me to interview them for this project and provided feedback at various points in the writing process. I especially want to recognize Paul and Mary Gottfried and Annette Kirk who gave me access to important primary source material. v Table of Contents Page 1. Introduction: The Complex World of Postwar Conservatism 1 2. Methodology and Conservatism’s Textual Communities 32 3. Russell Kirk creates American Conservatism 67 4. A Bourgeois Reactionary: The Conservatism of John Lukacs 131 5. Left Meets Right: Christopher Lasch at Limits of Intellect 192 6. No Country for the Old Right: Paul Gottfried’s Historical Imagination 251 7. Epilogue: The Imaginative Turn in America 320 Appendix A: IRB Approval 337 vi Chapter 1: Introduction: The Complex World of Postwar Conservatism Overview: George Nash Defines Conservatism In 1976, historian George Nash published The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945 (CIM).1 Nash’s tome was the first attempt to explain the significance of conservatism in postwar America. CIM holds a special place among conservatives because it remains the only scholarly effort at synthesizing the entirety of conservative intellectualism in America.2 Nash’s opus was influential for two specific reasons. First, Nash was one of the few scholars who sympathized with the conservatives and was willing to write about them. Second, Nash painted a picture of conservatism as a monolithic entity. Nash offered a readable and clean narrative that made CIM accessible to many. Nash’s study brought together various anti-liberal schools—groups of intellectuals who rejected certain, most, or all aspects of modern liberalism—under the banner of conservatism.3 1 George Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945 (Wilmington: ISI Books, 2006). Basic Books originally published CIM in 1976. Intercollegiate Studies Institute bought the copyright to CIM decades after the original publication date. 2 There are books that deal with conservative intellectuals. However, none attempts the wide synthesis that Nash did in 1976. For examples of recent literature on conservative intellectuals see, Patrick Allitt, The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010); David Farber, The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism: A Short History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010); Gregory Schneider, The Conservative Century: From Reaction to Revolution (Lanham, MD.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009); Donald Critchlow, Debating the American Conservative Movement: 1945 to the Present (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009); Ronald Story, The Rise of Conservatism in America, 1945- 2000: A Brief History with Documents (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2007); Jerry Muller, Conservatism: An Anthology of Social and Political Thought from David Hume to the Present (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997). 3 Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement, 266-283. The grouping of these various conservative schools together became known as “fusionism.” Nash explains fusionism through its originator Frank Meyer who believed that conservatism was torn between the anti-authoritarianism of classical liberalism and the authoritarianism of traditionalism. These two philosophies were fused together in return for intellectual viability. Fusionism was also associated with thinking about conservatism as a harmonious entity. I plan to develop and analyze the “fusionist” argument later in the study. For further treatments of this concept see, Frank Meyer, What is Conservatism? (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964); George W. Carey, “Conservatives and Libertarians View Fusionism: It’s Origins, Possibilities, and Problems,” Modern Age 26 (1982): 8-18. 1 In hindsight, Nash’s thesis seems bold because he painted conservatism with such broad strokes. This, however, may partially be excused because he was the first to attempt such an undertaking. Recently, historians have chided Nash over his methodology and for using sympathetic broad strokes.4 Understanding the nature of this debate over Nash’s methodology is a key into the recent historiographical shift concerning research on American conservatism. Nash’s belief was that American conservatism came to fruition after the Second World War because of a wider rejection of liberal ideas contained in the New Deal and elsewhere.5 From Nash’s chair, it appeared that conservatives, of all stripes, were reacting